Mumon – The Land Of Stealth Movie Review

Shinobi no Kuni (忍びの国) or Mumon – The Land Of Stealth has recently ended its special screening in Malaysia. The screening was organised in conjunction with Malaysia first ever Anime Film Festival 2017 at Paradigm Mall, Selangor from August 25 to September 3,2017 by Odex Private Limited and GSCMovies, partnership with GSCCinemas and TOFF.

MUMON is a manga adaption movie from Ryo Wada’s popular novel of the same name tittle. The movie time setting was between in Warring State era, between year 1573–1592, focusing on the Tensho Iga War – the battle of ninja versus samurai. Thus, this movie story plot can be generalised as invasion of samurai, leads by the second son of Nobunaga Oda, Nobukatsu Oda into the land of Iga, where brute ninja lives.

Moving into the cast list. Ohno Satoshi of popular idol group, Arashi, was cast as the main character, Mumon – the greatest shinobi of Iga. He acted along with Ishihara Satomi, acted ad his bride, Okuni. The pairing seems comfortable on screen, despite this is their first time acting together. Mumon in his way, trying his hard to appease his bride demands of wealth which was adorable at one point, and hilarious on another. The emotion play at near end struck the most between this pairing’s interaction.

The story wont be able to progress without supporting character like Nobukatsu Oda(Yuri Chinen of Hey!Sey!Jump!), Daizen Heki(Yusuke Iseya), Heibei Shimoyama(Suzuki Ryohei), Rin Kitabatake(Yuna Taira), Sandayu Momoji(Danshun Tatekawa), Tomonori Kitabatake(Jun Kunimura), Kai Shimoyama(Denden) and rest of the cast. However, the character of Jirobe Shimoyama by Shinnosuke Mitsushima played the trigger point of the whole plot.

Kawa (川) or fight to death between Mumon and Heibei Shimoyama was so emotional that left me breathless. Intense swordplay and dagger clashes, accompanied with heavy emotional message and faint background music put anyone that was watching into silent. Apparantly, both Ohno Satoshi and Suzuki Ryohei went intensive training for the battle and their roles respectively. You could see the result of their training in the their battle against each other – Remarkable!

Between the manga and movie story plot, there are some minor differences that doesn’t affect story line as a whole. The director Nakamura Yoshihiro effort to push dramatic highlights in approximately two hours enjoyable action movie is worth mentioning. Kudos to director, cast list, staff and everyone that involve in this epic movie! Round of applause!

The words of wisdom in the movie was highlighted twice – by two different characters. Each repeated the same line, indicates the missing key that worth for us to be ponder over. The last message by Daizen Heki also signify the importance of it, to us the later generation. The morality, honour encrypted within the scenes, balancing out the humour and action. All in all, movie so fun to watch.

At the end credit, a high energy theme song features prominent electric guitars and shamisen, concluded the movie with a bow. Tsunagu (つなぐ) or ‘Bond’, is the theme song for MUMON by Japanese top idol group, ARASHI(嵐). Despite that MUMON is based on actual Japan historical event, there are generous humour moments that lighten the atmosphere and clear message to be digested.